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liminalorchid 's review for:
The Power
by Naomi Alderman
DID NOT FINISH: 61%
Despite its promising premise, The Power ultimately fails to offer a meaningful critique of patriarchy. Rather than exploring how power dynamics are shaped by history, culture, and gendered experience, the novel lazily swaps roles—suggesting that women, if given power, would simply become violent and oppressive in the same way men have been. There's no meaningful interrogation of what a matriarchal society could be. This "reverse patriarchy" framework reduces the complexity of feminist thought to a cynical thought experiment.
A lot of the book’s sexual content veers into uncomfortable territory—not because it’s explicit, but because it feels exploitative and performative. There's an overemphasis on physical dominance as empowerment, with very little emotional or intellectual dimension. It seems to suggest that women, if given the chance, would also SA and torture for pleasure, which again collapses structural critique into crude revenge fantasy.
A lot of the book’s sexual content veers into uncomfortable territory—not because it’s explicit, but because it feels exploitative and performative. There's an overemphasis on physical dominance as empowerment, with very little emotional or intellectual dimension. It seems to suggest that women, if given the chance, would also SA and torture for pleasure, which again collapses structural critique into crude revenge fantasy.
The characters feel flat and symbolic, with little psychological depth or growth. The inclusion of a male protagonist in a story about women's empowerment feels like a missed opportunity to truly center women’s perspectives, and the narrative's near-total exclusion of queer and trans experiences is especially glaring in a book about gender upheaval. Having a male protagonist wouldn’t inherently be a problem if the other characters were robustly developed and the narrative didn’t keep re-centering the male gaze. But in a book ostensibly about women gaining power, giving equal weight to Tunde’s journey feels like hedging—as though the author couldn’t trust the story to stand without a familiar patriarchal lens.
The gender binary is treated as a fixed biological truth, with no nuance around intersex conditions, trans identities, or how people across the gender spectrum might respond to such a global transformation. For a book written in the 2010s, that omission is glaring. Much of the plot is disjointed and overly focused on eroticized violence, with little narrative payoff or emotional resonance.
The gender binary is treated as a fixed biological truth, with no nuance around intersex conditions, trans identities, or how people across the gender spectrum might respond to such a global transformation. For a book written in the 2010s, that omission is glaring. Much of the plot is disjointed and overly focused on eroticized violence, with little narrative payoff or emotional resonance.
The pacing is inconsistent, and the threads don’t weave together with clarity or intention. The speculative elements are rushed, under-explored, and often serve shock value rather than worldbuilding. Instead of reimagining what a matriarchal or egalitarian world might look like, Alderman's vision reads like what a man might imagine if women were suddenly in charge—reductive, cynical, and disappointingly shallow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Trafficking, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Alcoholism, Pedophilia